History

Our history stretches back over 130 years. In 1883, Jacksonville faced a smallpox epidemic, which shut down the city. A citizen’s committee, led by Colonel James Jaquelin Daniel, was quickly formed and brought together business, charitable organizations, healthcare systems, and government to respond to the problem. The crisis was averted. Then in 1888, a yellow fever epidemic struck. A second Citizens Committee was created, again chaired by J.J. Daniel. While J.J. Daniel died of the yellow fever, the city recovered.

In 1901, Jacksonville burned. The Great Fire again required a community response, and many of those who had served on the 1888 Citizens Committee were called back into service. Several citizen committees – the Jacksonville Relief Association, sanitation committee, lodging committee, transportation committee, and women’s auxiliary – helped Jacksonville through the immediate crisis. Professor Daniel Schafer wrote, “Jacksonville began health and welfare coordination in a different context from that of most American cities … In Jacksonville it was the intervention of the civic elite … who implemented coordinated programs of a progressive and far-reaching nature.”

In 1915 the Welfare Federation was organized. Soon after, the Duval County Council of Social Work was created. The two were differentiated in that the Welfare Federation was an “organization of agencies” while the Council was an “organization of individuals.” The Welfare Federation helped form the Community Chest in 1924, which became the United Fund and later the United Way. Once the Community Chest was up and running, the Welfare Federation became a division of the Community Chest. The Welfare Federation absorbed the Council of Social Working 1934 and became

Bay & Main after the Great Fire of 1901

Credit Jacksonville Historical Society

A bold photo for a new city: Actress Lee Meredith poses with Jacksonville Mayor Hans Tanzler on Oct. 1, 1968, at consolidated Jacksonville's new border at Florida 13 and Julington Creek.

the Council of Social Agencies of Duval County. It was under this name that it – we – completed the 1946 study on racial disparities. In December 1958, the Council was formally disbanded and reconstituted in April 1959 as the Community Planning Board. In 1963, it became the Planning Division of the United Fund.

In 1967, the organization was rechartered as the Community Planning Council of the Jacksonville Area Inc., and began operations under that name in 1968. It moved out of the United Fund location to separate quarters in May 1969. Under the leadership of David Hicks, Lois Graessle, and others, the Planning Council published in 1974 a fifteen-volume report on goals and priorities for Jacksonville. Parallel with the Community Planning Council's efforts, the Chamber of Commerce began to broaden its focus beyond business growth and development to include an emphasis on upgrading the quality-of-life in the total community. To that end, president-elect Fred Schultz organized a three-day Jacksonville Community Planning Conference in June 1974 at Amelia Island Plantation. Out of three days of discussions came ten priorities for Jacksonville, and a new way to reach those priorities. The conference planning committee, the Community Planning Council, and the Commission on Goals and Priorities for Human Services merged to create the Jacksonville Council on Citizen Involvement in January 1975, which later changed its name to the Jacksonville Community Council Inc. J.J. Daniel, grandson and namesake of Colonel Daniel, was the first chair.

Over the next four decades, JCCI would engage the community around numerous community issues, creating transformative results for the city. In 1985, JCCI launched the world's first community quality-of-life indicators project, now recognized as a global gold standard and echoed in well over a thousand communities worldwide. In response to a 1996 inquiry, Leadership: Meeting Community Needs, JCCI launched Forward in 1999. With increasing demands for consulting work in other cities, in 2009 JCCI introduced JCCI Consulting Services. In 2013, JCCI facilitated Jacksonville's largest community-driven vision for the future, JAX2025.

Daniel Schafer wrote: “There is a spirit alive in JCCI; it is the spirit of thousands of civic volunteers who have come to the aid of their beleaguered community from the 1880s until the present.”